How do authors portray persons of color, the disabled, and gender in their stories? Science fiction and fantasy have come a long way and have often been at the forefront of these issues and sometimes not. What more needs to be done? What’s the next step in portraying a more diverse universe?

Share this:

I wrote an article on Tanith Lee’s weird fiction on Weird Fiction Review in honor of her 70th birthday.

While Tanith Lee (1947-2015) is mostly known as a fantasy writer, much of her short fiction existed in that interstitial region between genres. Not quite horror, or fantasy, her work in this mode would most comfortably fit in the weird tale category. Lee’s ‘weird’ fiction had a distinct gothic tone, and was often underscored by her eccentric wit.

Share this:

A week or so ago, a Facebook friend of mine in the composer world shared an image of CD he’d recently received, called The Great God Pan: An Opera in 2 Acts. I ended up chatting with Ross Crean, the composer of the opera based on Arthur Machen’s work. I had just come home from NecronomiCon, where there was a panel on Machen’s work. I missed that panel, but people who had attended mentioned that a panelist spoke about the “psychedelic nature” imagery that shows up in Machen’s work.

Share this:

2 PM: #OwnVoices: What Does It Mean to Write What You Know? Identity and SF/F
Authors discuss what it’s like writing characters who share their own marginalized identities and mapping issues of identity into science fiction and fantasy.

4 PM: Turning Old Monsters Into New
Still scared of the Boogie Man? Our panel resurrects the monsters you grew up with, talks about all the monsters you grew up with, from fairy tales to urban fantasy to myths and legends and the thing underneath your bed, discuss how modern fiction is reinterpreting them.

12 PM Politics, Resistance, & Speculative Fiction
Science fiction and fantasy have always been political, and have always used genre trappings to explore the here and now through the past and future. What does that look like in the current political climate?
Authors: Lara Elena Donnelly, Ruthanna Emrys, Craig Laurance Gidney, Addison Gunn, Malka Older. Moderator: Scott H. Andrews

1 PM – Signing (w/ Tom Doyle)

2 PM Fantasy: It’s Epic, it’s Historic, it’s Dark or Weird or High or Low or Urban
How are all of the categories of fantasy even the same genre? From dungeons to dragons to vampires in our midst, our panel will discuss what they love, what they write, and what you should be reading.

The Outer Dark presents an all-new panel discussion recorded at NecronomiCon 2017 featuring Craig Laurance Gidney, Scott R. Jones, Stephen Graham Jones, Peter Straub and Sonya Taaffe. hosted by Scott Nicolay and moderated by Anya Martin (00:18:25). The discussion focuses on long term trends in Weird fiction including living in Weird sociopolitical times, the growth of the Weird Renaissance and its effect on the greater Literature Fantastica, new Weird visions by marginalized voices, destabilization versus reassurance/escapism, ‘reality as a trampoline,’ Weird fiction’s conservative past versus a different kind of Weird story emerging now, Lovecraft’s anxieties as a ‘window’ onto a much larger horrifying world, ‘new’ voices challenging our concept of what is The Weird, embracing versus rejecting fear and loving Otherness, altered market forces and the effect of editorial shifts and the rise of the small press, why speculative fiction should be interstitial, writing ‘things we don’t know,’ less explored topics in Weird fiction, and some exciting announcements about the future of The Outer Dark. This panel took place on Saturday August 19 at noon.